The following description is provided to assist the understanding of the reader. None of the information provided or references cited is admitted to be prior art to the present technology.
Nanomaterials tend to accumulate at tumor sites as a result of leaky vasculature and poor lymphatic drainage. As such, many nanomaterials have been proposed as drug carriers. However, the pharmacokinetic and in vivo distribution of a nanomaterial can be affected by many physicochemical properties (Alexis et al., Mol Pharm 5:505-15 (2008)). Smaller nanoparticles (<3-5 nm) are often eliminated from the body by renal clearance and thus have relatively shorter plasma half-lives (Choi et al., Nat Biotechnol 25:1165-70 (2007)). On the other hand, larger particles (>10-20 nm) are prompt to be captured by the reticuloendothelial system (Burns et al., Nano Lett 9:442-8 (2009)), and therefore, are more likely to be taken up by the liver and spleen (Li & Huang, Mol Pharm 5:496-504 (2008)).
Apart from size, the shape of a nanomaterial may impact the pharmacokinetic property and biodistribution of the nanomaterial (Geng et al., Nat Nanotechnol 2:249-55 (2007)). For example, after intravenous injection, the uptake of gold nanorods by liver was found to be less than its spherical counterpart of same size (Arnida et al., Eur J Pharm Biopharm 77:417-23 (2011)).